redprints
by deadskilletted
Summary: She can turn your old mistakes into artwork and your broken parts into something beautiful. (Rachel/Annabeth/Rachebeth/what is this ship name) (Slash)


The third pencil breaks, and Annabeth is left without any pencils.

Well, not _really_ , because she still has her mechanical pencil left, but she hates the feel of writing with a mechanical pencil, and the only reason she even owns one is because Percy left it as a joke during his last visit and Annabeth never bothered returning it. (The pencil's cute, at least; cartoon sea creatures on a red-orange background, bubbles and smiles and all.)

With a sigh, she grabs the mechanical pencil out of the cup on her desk, pushes down on the eraser until a sufficient amount of graphite sticks out, and continues to draw her blueprint.

In her hand, the mechanical pencil snaps, and Annabeth finally accepts the fact that she's frustrated and probably needs a break.

She gets up from her desk, stretches, and shuffles into the kitchen. She busies herself with a new cup of coffee (the old one from this morning left cold and forgotten), and simply stands there for a while. The front door opens, and she should probably be worried, considering she lives alone, but she can hear the familiar shuffle of feet, can imagine the person that comes with it, who has a presence so bright and so airy that Annabeth wonders if she's even real, or if she's actually a figment that belongs with the dark red shine of dying stars.

When she enters rooms, she's a ghost, only making herself known to those who look. Once she's in the room, it's a different story; she may remain a ghost, or she will become a beacon, stealing all the light as her own and nearly making the room implode with all the pressure she brings towards herself, all the eyes she sets on her. It's only Annabeth, though, that she could possibly grab the attention of, so Annabeth let's her take it as she pleases.

"Rachel," Annabeth says as she turns, leans against the counter, She brings the coffee to her lips, and takes Rachel in - she must have cut her hair, again, because the red curls barely grace her shoulders, clad in long sleeves of stained white, with a green scarf resting on her chest. Annabeth wonders how a scarf could match someone's eyes so well yet clash with their hair so much.

"How many pencils did you break?" she asks with a smile, and Annabeth, belatedly, realizes that even after all these years, Rachel can still get on her nerves in two seconds flat all the while looking pretty in jeans.

She grits her teeth and tries her best not to smash her mug of coffee, then takes a deep breath. "Shut. Up."

Rachel, to her credit, does shut up, but keeps the smile, smug and sweet and knowing. She adjusts her scarf, tilts her head just so, and walks straight towards Annabeth's room, where she knows there's a blueprint ready to be finished or torn to shreds. Annabeth doesn't have much choice but to follow.

When Annabeth walks into the room, Rachel is already at her desk, new pencil in hand (she always carries one with her, and it's always mechanical because they don't break as easily in her pockets, and don't have to be sharpened periodically), and when Rachel looks up, Annabeth knows it's for permission, so Annabeth nods, and sits on the bed.

When Rachel works, it's with a certain kind of definiteness that only evolves from confidence in the realm of traditional art. This definiteness might also come from the presence of an undo button, a backup, that is a prime feature of creating the digital media that Rachel has become rather familiar with, but Rachel almost never reaches for her eraser, so Annabeth doubts her work ethic lies in the latter. Briefly, Annabeth finds herself considering the merits of digital art for her blueprints, but that would mean technology, which means monsters. She would also run the risk of breaking the tablet pen, which might be even worse than the monsters, because while she has grown up with monsters, finding good bargains on tablet pens is not something she has experience with, and seems like more trouble than it's probably worth.

Annabeth puts her focus back on Rachel and the way her hands move across the paper, and when Rachel looks up at her once more, this time for approval, Annabeth nods again. From her perch on the bed, she can see the myriad of colored ink most likely stolen form her desk, and the way it blends together like something out of a magazine in fall, and it's beautiful.

Of more interest, though, is the way Rachel's eyes light up at her approval, and the way her freckles glow across her skin, and the way her smile burns hotter than any star, and how it all melts Annabeth's frustration away, at least for now.

 **A/N:** **so i'm not dead, yay! wanted to point out that this is more of a "relaxed" account, where i don't worry too much about how my writing sounds (for instance, i wrote this today, after looking through some of my old notes and finding the title and summary). i prefer not to link this account to my other accounts, but i'm also on ao3 and tumblr under a different username. if your interested in free! and/or haikyuu! (or other stuff im too lazy to name, because it's mostly haikyuu! and free!), feel free to ask about it (but it might be already be on this site somewhere? idk)**


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